Media representations of social class

Marxism

Media reps are shaped to serve the interests of those owners and investors, demonstrating how ownership determines the ideological direction of the media (media is an ISA-Althusser).

• Newman notes the very rich are greatly over-represented in the media. Films such as The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) glamorised excessive wealth and capitalist success-promoting admiration for elite lifestyles. He, also, notes that w/c lives are presented as marginal and problematic rather than as a significant proportion of the population- creates false class consciousness (w/c individuals turn on members of their own class) preventing a w/c revolution.

Criticisms of Marxism

Audiences are active, not passive. People interpret media messages in different ways, depending on their own class, background, and experiences. Therefore, the media cannot easily impose a single “dominant ideology”- it simply provides a range of reps that audiences can accept, reject, or reinterpret.

Neo-Marxism

Many media producers are from privileged backgrounds (m/c, privately educated) and have been socialised into a worldview that aligns with the elite’s values, creating a narrow minded media agenda prioritising the interests of the elite and stereotyping the w/c as reliant on benefits- ignores structural inequalities, like housing or employment.

Middle class culture is presented as normal and the default or normal way of life whereas w/c characters are underrepresented or shown through simplified stereotypes (e.g loud, lazy, or ‘salt of the earth’) or turned into a comedy.

Criticisms of Neo-Marxism

Pluralists argue that the neo-marxist perspective underestimates the professionalism and independence of media producers. They contend that neo-marxists ignore the reality that most media professionals are guided by a commitment to attracting and informing or entertaining audiences.

Pluralists suggest that the neo-marxists emphasis on class dominance overlooks the complex, audience oriented nature of modern media production.

Pluralism

The media is made up of businesses that operate within the context of supply and demand. They must present social classes in ways that are appealing to audiences so that they consume the media content, which maintains advertisers and subscriptions. Different media outlets (for e.g The Wolf of Wall Street celebrates capitalism whilst the film, Sorry We Missed You are critical of it) may target different types of audiences, leading to a plurality of representing different social classes.

Criticisms of Neo-Marxism

Marxists argue that pluralists don’t consider the importance of media ownership. Most media companies are owned and controlled by the wealthy, upper class or m/c individuals and corporations. This mean that the perspectives shown in the media often reflect the interests and values of those in power, not the full diversity of society.

Postmodernism

Reps of social class are are constructed, stylised, and often ironic images that blur the boundaries between classes.

Media mix low and high culture: luxury brands, w/c slang, and pop culture references appear together (fore e.g. music videos combine designer clothes with w/c imagery)-this creates hybrid class identities.

• Social media influencers or celebrities display luxury lifestyles that ordinary people can ‘experience’ virtually. This links to Baudrillard’s idea of hyperreality, where media simulations or simulacra often feel more real than reality itself. Media images of social class may bear little resemblance to real economic or social conditions.

Criticisms of Postmodernism

Social class still shape people’s life chances, access to education, and the types of media they can produce or appear in. Working-class people still face stereotyping, underrepresentation, and limited visibility in mainstream media. This maintains hegemonic (dominant) ideas: that the existing class system is fair natural, fair, or inevitable.

Skeggs

She is associated with the feminist theory and also uses Bourdieu in her work.

Reality TV presents w/c people as objects of ridicule or moral judgement, rather than as complex individuals. She says “working class people are made visible only as excess, as too emotional, too sexual, too vulgar and therefore available for moral judgement. She describes this as a form of ‘class disgust’ where m/c viewers are invited to look down on the w/c.

• Skeggs argues that media reps perform symbolic violence: they reproduce class inequality by presenting m/c lifestyles as normal and desirable. The w/c become a symbolic Other, a way for the m/c to affirm its own moral and cultural superiority.